Law panel looks into syncing of local body polls with state, Lok Sabha

A high-level committee, headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind, is also looking into the modalities of simultaneous elections

The 22nd Law Commission is looking into the possibility of synchronising local body elections with assembly and parliamentary polls, the panel’s chairman said on Thursday, underlining an expansion of the scope of its yet-to-be-finalised report on simultaneous elections.

In India, most local body polls are scattershot, and held at various times based on local timelines largely decided by state governments. (Uma Shankar Mishra)

Law Commission chief and former Karnataka high court chief justice Ritu Raj Awasthi said that the panel was working on ways to sync local body polls with state and national elections, after a reference from the central government.

A high-level committee, headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind, is also looking into the modalities of simultaneous elections.

“We have been asked to frame our report in a way we can see if the feasibility of local body polls work out… The issues highlighted by the high-level committee was related to local bodies,” Awasthi said.

He confirmed that the Law Commission was yet to finalise its report on the issue.

“Earlier in their reference, only Lok Sabha and assembly elections were there, and now they have added the local body elections also. So that is to be synchronised…so we are working on that,” he added.

Awasthi said no deadline was set for the report. The Law Commission was a part of the second meeting of the Kovind panel on October 25, where it presented a road map that proposed changes to the Constitution to hold simultaneous elections.

The addition of local body polls to the proposal for holding simultaneous state and Parliament polls adds another layer of complexity to an already fractious topic. In India, most local body polls are scattershot, and held at various times based on local timelines largely decided by state governments. Urban and rural civic bodies -- which are three-tiered and mostly have a five-year term save some territories -- elect their members at different times, as do major cities in what forms a complex mesh of polls.

The issue of holding state and national elections simultaneously is a politically loaded one, and is also seen as polarising. From the first elections in Independent India in 1952 until 1967, elections were held simultaneously across the country. But since the Lok Sabha and state assemblies can be dissolved before their tenures end, the state and national elections came to be held at different times after that.

Kovind has already come out in favour of simultaneous parliamentary and state assembly polls, urging all political parties to support the idea in national interest. In November last year, the former president said any party in power at the Centre will benefit from “one nation, one election” and money saved in election expenditure could be used for development.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has backed the idea of holding state and national elections simultaneously several times in the past. But opposition parties reject the proposal as undemocratic and said the decision was “against the interests” of the country.

Awasthi said the Law Commission was working on ways to ensure that each voter is given a chance to elect a new representative government before state and national elections are clubbed.

Among the ideas being considered was having a fixed five-year tenure, irrespective of early dissolution of the government, said a senior member of the law commission, requesting anonymity.

In case a caretaker government cannot be formed, necessitating midterm elections, the new government will only serve for the remaining tenure, so that elections to all state assemblies and the Lok Sabha coincide, the commission member said.

This way, according to one of proposals before the commission, all assembly elections scheduled for a calendar year will be held on the same date, and then made to coincide with the next round of national elections, he added. A similar system was proposed in 2018 by the 21st Law Commission in its draft report.

The Law Commission is a non-statutory body, working under the aegis of the Union ministry of law and justice. Following definite terms of reference from the department of legal affairs, the commission conducts research in the field of law and makes recommendations to the Centre in the form of reports. These recommendations are not binding on the government, though they may have some persuasive value.

In the past, a parliamentary standing committee, the Niti Aayog, and the Law Commission have weighed in on the issue, expressing concern over the burgeoning expense of holding one election after another but also flagging possible constitutional and legal problems.

In 1999, the Law Commission in its 170th report on Reform of Electoral Laws backed the idea. “We must go back to the situation where the elections to Lok Sabha and all the legislative assemblies are held at once... the holding of a separate election to a legislative assembly should be an exception and not the rule,” it said.

In 2018, the draft report of the Law Commission said holding simultaneous elections would be ideal as well as desirable, but a workable formula is required to be provided in the Constitution. The report said the process of simultaneous elections did not alter any of the entries on the three lists (over the division of power between the Union and States) and did not interfere with the legislative competence of the Centre or the states.

In 2018, the election commission did not dismiss the idea outright but drew attention to the exorbitant costs that the proposal could incur because resources -- such as EVMs, security, vehicles, deputed -- officials cannot be spread around in a simultaneous poll.